Monday, November 12, 2007

Shakespeare Haunts Me and Everyone Else

I read Shakespeare often and gladly. I am finding that being in a Shakespearean tragedy, memorizing lines and watching others interpret theirs in ways I don't expect, germinates my reading of other plays. I dig into the Riverside and troll out new ideas about plays I thought I understood. The return to Shakespeare is nothing new, but it is always exciting, and time-consuming, to approach a familiar destination from a new direction.

Does one ever really stop reading Hamlet?

I was looking for a picture of a woman with Yorick. I know there are all-female casts all over the world performing Shakespeare plays, but I couldn't find the most popular image in drama with a woman playing Hamlet. I think this is really weird. I spent almost 90 minutes looking to no avail. You would think that feminists and other progressives, whose interest is to establish women in predominantly male roles in society, would have taken on this one by now. If I were an actress, I would demand a picture be taken of me with a skull.

Even weirder is that the one I finally had to settle on was this:::::It is from Shakespeare production in Second Life.SECOND LIFE!!! I have never even considered the possibilities of Second Life when it came to drama. You can be in a play without stage fright.You can play any role because you can be any size weight or anything else. Props? No problem. Set? your imagination is the limit. Remarkable.

Shakespeare's continuing effect on contemporary culture.I found this:::::She's supposed to be Ariel from the Tempest.I laughed a little when I looked at the pictures, but there is something sad and piteous about them, too. That's exactly what Ariel does in the play, so that's pretty cool.